How convenient

Research into the only known film of the Anzac campaign has revealed that soldiers identified as Australians are New Zealanders and Irishmen….

Soldiers in a vivid trench fighting scene thought to have been of Australians were the 5th Royal Irish Fusiliers at Suvla Bay, and soldiers shown carrying water through the trenches to the frontline at Quinn’s Post were from the Wellington Infantry Battalion.

Mis-identification of the soldiers in Bean’s film had been deliberate, and was done because of the need to show an Australian narrative, Dr Pugsley said.

“Gallipoli had become the iconic centrepiece of the Australian achievements in the First World War, and so he looked at all these images and assessed how he could tell the Australian story with them,” he said.

“He didn’t want to clutter up his story line by referring to New Zealanders on the frontline because really, when you look at it, there’s far more footage of New Zealanders on the frontline than there is of Australians.